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Detecting single infrared photons with 93% system efficiency

Abstract

Single-photon detectors1 at near-infrared wavelengths with high system detection efficiency (>90%), low dark count rate (<1 c.p.s.), low timing jitter (<100 ps) and short reset time (<100 ns) would enable landmark experiments in a variety of fields2,3,4,5,6. Although some of the existing approaches to single-photon detection fulfil one or two of the above specifications1, to date, no detector has met all of the specifications simultaneously. Here, we report on a fibre-coupled single-photon detection system that uses superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors7 and closely approaches the ideal performance of single-photon detectors. Our detector system has a system detection efficiency (including optical coupling losses) greater than 90% in the wavelength range λ = 1,520–1,610 nm, with a device dark count rate (measured with the device shielded from any background radiation) of 1 c.p.s., timing jitter of 150 ps full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) and reset time of 40 ns.

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Figure 1: Bias current dependence of SDE, SDCR and DDCR.
Figure 2: Polarization and wavelength dependence of SDE.
Figure 3: Temperature dependence of SDE, SDCR and DDCR.
Figure 4: Reset time and jitter.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank R. M. Briggs, S. D. Dyer, W. H. Farr, J. Gao, M. Green, E. Grossman, P. D. Hale, R. W. Leonhardt, I. Levin and R. E. Muller for technical support, and S. Bradley, B. Calkins, A. Migdall and M. Stevens for scientific discussions. Part of this work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Information in a Photon programme). Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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F.M., V.B.V., J.A.S., A.E.L., B.B., R.P.M. and S.W.N. conceived and designed the experiments. F.M., V.B.V., J.A.S., S.H. and T.G. performed the experiments. F.M. and S.H. analysed the data. J.A.S., I.V., M.D.S. and S.W.N. contributed materials/analysis tools. F.M. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to F. Marsili or S. W. Nam.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Marsili, F., Verma, V., Stern, J. et al. Detecting single infrared photons with 93% system efficiency. Nature Photon 7, 210–214 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.13

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